


Guilty

by Taera



Category: Assassin's Creed
Genre: Action, Angst, Available in Russian, Dark, Gen, POV First Person, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-04
Updated: 2016-05-04
Packaged: 2018-06-06 08:19:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,632
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6746422
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Taera/pseuds/Taera
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lisbon writhes in pain.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Guilty

**Author's Note:**

  * A translation of [Виновен](https://archiveofourown.org/works/5484647) by [Tatrien (Taera)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Taera/pseuds/Tatrien). 



> An attempt to understand this character.
> 
> Written for "Fandom Combat 2015".

My lungs are burning, eyes watering because of the gray powder swirling in the air and the hungry flames breaking out all around me. The roar in my ears never stops, the rustle and the snapping and the thunder haunting me on every step I take. I want to stop, to rest and to calm my trembling hands – but I cannot, because dying cries of innocent people of Lisbon are cutting through the air behind me like scorching knives, they’re piercing my very soul with poisonous claws. And so I’m running forward, choking on the smells of burning, of blood and of dust.  There’s no time to think, no time to comprehend, and with every mutilated body clothed in torn bloody rags, I’m sinking into the black abyss a little bit more.

My arms and legs are lead-heavy, they weight me to the ground and the force is unbearable, yet I continue running – because I’m one of those few who has a real chance of getting out of this city that’s tearing apart at its seams, I’m the only one who can return to Achilles and tell him the whole truth. Tell him that what Precursor box shows must never be meddled with under any circumstances. Tell him that Assassins are to be blamed for what happened in Haiti. And that I am responsible for Lisbon.

Blinding pain bursts in the chest, and for several moments I cannot grasp the reality. Only hearing the crackle of breaking beams above me and the rumble of collapsing walls I instinctively jump forward and roll over. The air, hot and dry, angrily pushes me in the back, metallic taste on the tongue mixing with a creaking sand between the teeth.

During those several short moments while I’m sitting on the earth that is writhing in pain and try to gather myself, a treacherous thought weaves into my head, runs there in circles coaxing me to remain still. To rest. To wait for my well-deserved death, cruel and terrifying, and to join the chorus of dying voices. All I need to do is give up, bend under the ever-growing weight of innocent victims, shout at the top of my lungs from despair and unbearable pain.

Somewhere nearby a little girl is calling for her mother. She’s crying piercingly loud, hiccupping from the exertion, then her screams turn into a high-pitched squeal – and abruptly end.

I feel sick.

Because I know what happened to her. I know who’s responsible for this. I know what I deserve.

And death, even a cruel one, is not on the list.

Ignoring my body screaming from exhaustion I stand up and run forward, guided by a sixth sense and sailor’s guts – the sea is there. Water is there.

The safety there.

The streets transformed into a weaving labyrinth of angry snakes, they twist and bite and crumble under my feet; they burn with their poisonous tongues of flames, they try to grasp me. But I had trained for years with Liam and Kesegowaase, so even if my mind cannot comprehend where exactly I’m running to right now and what is going on all around me, my body knows perfectly well what must be done.

I must survive.

So that I could atone for my guilt before all those who had died – and will die yet – today because of me. It doesn’t matter if my redemption could never be fulfilled.

Oh, why had I touched that Piece of Eden? Indeed, I _had_ seen that it was not the Apple, that it was something completely different! Why? _Why_ had I taken it?

I want to scream but I can barely breathe. My head is buzzing from exhaustion and lack of air, my coat is heavy, it pushes me to the ground, the shirt, soaked wet with sweat, is clinging to chest and back. The hood is suffocating – I constantly want to get it off, rip it away and take a deep breath, yet my arms would not go up. Every time there’s something else to do – get a grip on that beam, pull up along a crumbling wall, push away from a column suddenly growing in the middle of a road. Even the wind, blowing me in the face, is powerless when it comes to taking my hood off. I’m choking in it, it feels as if it is soaked in the blood of innocents, whose lives will forever remain with me like a basalt monolith on my soul.

I want to cry, yet heat and ashes make my throat dry. My eyes were watering at first, but now they burn, and I long to squeeze them shut, to splash water on my face, all just to get rid of all the sand under the eyelids, all the dust, and the ashes.

It’s as if I’ve been running for an eternity. I hear the lives and homes of others crumble behind me, hear their hopes and dreams fall down, I hear how with every passing second, with every step I take more and more hearts break. More and more souls rise to Heaven, leaving smashed and mutilated shells behind.

The buildings are shuddering in their death dance. When I try to run though one of them, it, as if alive, resists; it crumbles, throws a writing table at me, trying to crush me under torn off tiles and broken bricks, trying to bury me near my victims. At that moment I even have time to regret that my life – my hell – had ended so quickly.  And then, when cracked tiles blow the wind out of me as I fall down on them, insanity, mixed with relief, softly touches my mind. I’m still alive.

What a fool I am – hoping not to go mad when all of my senses crumble under the yoke of guilt and despair, when poisoned hope erode something inside me and the bitter taste of betrayal is on my tongue. I have no idea whether Achilles suspected the possibility of such an aftermath. He had to, especially after Haiti. But in that case, he would've surely warned me, yes? He would’ve told me what I shouldn’t do under any circumstances, wouldn’t he? Thoughts intertwine, their venomous fangs driving deep into my brittle mind. Doubts are gnawing at my confidence in the Brotherhood.

When I look down at the streets, an animal terror curl in my stomach like a slimy snail, and suddenly I realize that I’m running again, that I even manage to jump over a wide breach between the buildings, and only the burning abyss jerks me out from the stupor I was in. My sixth sense shouts like a madman that the water is close, the safety is close. That I have to press only a little further. Little further.

Climbing up the stairs, seeing cracks snaking, and dancing, and twisting under my feet, covering the marble tiles with ugly broken lines, I realize that I can run no longer. And even my mulish obstinacy will get me through only another several seconds, and after that I’ll drop to the ground and stay there, waiting for the roaring monster in the middle of a howling and yelling street.

Brown fog blocks my vision, thoughts getting frozen under the weight of fatigue and despair, and only animal instincts, animal craving to _live_ , even if to live _despite anything_ – only these things force me to make another step and another when there seems to be no power left in me. I’m running for an eternity now. And it’s been long enough. Now is a good time to rest.

Perhaps, a coward in me desperately wishes to end it all as soon as possible; wants to escape stultifying guilt that will surely make itself known the moment I’ll find myself in no immediate danger. Perhaps, it’s that coward that makes me gather what dwindling strength I’ve got and throw myself into the window. Perhaps, it’s this coward that feels twisted pleasure when the glass and the broken window sash bites into my open flesh, when with a burning flourish pain licks at my forehead and right cheek, and it’s this coward who is terrified for a moment with a prospect of losing an eye (stupid, stupid thing, considering that a few moments later I’ll crash onto hard and unyielding pavestones).

And then I see cliffs and raging blue waves, and somewhere in my stomach, there's inappropriate joy blooming.

I’ve managed to get here.

The fall leaves me with no air to breathe, cold water immediately soaking into clothes, seeping into soul and mind and for several seconds freezing them, and I, not having any strength left, can only watch myself slowly sinking to the bottom of the sea. The deep currents and waves feel like a lover’s embrace, calming, lulling to sleep.

All I have to do is close my eyes and  take a deep breath – and this nightmare will end. I won’t hear a girl’s cries seconds before her death anymore, I won’t remember wet crunching of bones when the wall of a building had fallen onto a square full of people. I’ll forget who’s responsible for all of this.

But in that case, all those lives will be lost in vain. Their deaths won’t have any meaning. It is immensely bad, to kill an innocent. To kill him _with no purpose_?

My body moves unwillingly, but I force it to swim. Closer, closer to the surface yet. Lungs are burning for air, but for countless times I had swum in the ocean when it was calm and when it was storming, I know how to behave. I know how to breathe.

I’ll survive.

And I’ll find a way to bring meaning to all the lives that were lost today.


End file.
